Clinton Signed NDA Laying Out Criminal Penalties for Mishandling of Classified Info

When the Clinton email/server scandal first broke in March, one of the (many) items of contention was whether or not Hillary personally signed the non-disclosure agreement (NDA) required of all other government employees with access to Sensitive Compartmentalized Information (SCI), among the nation’s highest levels of classification. Like all NDAs, the document lays out one’s responsibilities in return for such access.

Clinton, not surprisingly, refused to say whether she had or had not signed the document. It seems like a small thing — another government form — but in fact functions as a kind of legally-binding contract, saying in effect “Here’s what you have to do to protect this information, and here are the penalties if you do not.” The document is signed after receiving a briefing on its contents. The point is that there is no way a person caught mishandling classified information can claim they did not know the rules.

Now we know, finally, that Clinton did indeed sign the document. In fact, you can see it here, with her actual signature on it, thanks to some aggressive FOIA work by a group concerned with what a Clinton administration would do to our nation.

“I have been advised that the unauthorized disclosure, unauthorized retention, or negligent handling of SCI by me could cause irreparable injury to the United States or be used to advantage by a foreign nation,” the agreement states.

Clinton received at least two emails while secretary of state on her personal email server since marked “TS/SCI” — top secret/sensitive compartmented information — according to the U.S. intelligence community’s inspector general. The State Department confirmed in September that Clinton’s private email system was not authorized to handle SCI.

The Democratic presidential frontrunner defended her unauthorized possession of SCI and her sending of emails containing classified information by claiming that the information was not marked as classified when it was sent or received. But the language of her NDA explains it was Clinton’s responsibility to ascertain whether information shared through her private email server was, in fact, classified.

“I understand that it is my responsibility to consult with appropriate management authorities in the Department… in order to ensure that I know whether information or material within my knowledge or control that I have reason to believe might be SCI,” the agreement says.

The Clinton campaign, not surprisingly, did not respond to a media request for comment.